Niels Annen

Annen served as national chairman of the SPD's youth organization[5] from 2001 to 2004.[6]

Annen was elected to the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, at the 2005 election, representing the district Hamburg Eimsbüttel.[6] In parliament, he serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs.[6]

As a member of Committee on Foreign Affairs, Annen established himself as a left-wing SPD foreign policy expert,[7] focusing largely on the German engagement in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Within the committee he has served on the Subcommittee for Arms Control and Non Proliferation as well as the Subcommittee for the United Nations.[4]

Within the SPD parliamentary group, he was co-chairman of the Parliamentary Left, the largest political coalition within the SPD.[8] Between 2005 and 2009, he also served as Deputy Chairman of the German-Spanish Parliamentary Friendship Group.

Under controversial circumstances[9] Annen was deselected for the 2009 election, losing a primary election to Danial Ilkhanipour by 45 votes to 44.[6] Ilkhanipour lost the seat at the 2009 election to the CDU candidate Rüdiger Kruse. In March 2010, Annen joined the German Marshall Fund as a Senior Fellow in Washington, D.C., for a six-month term.[4] Between 2011 and 2013, he served as director of European policy analysis at the Berlin headquarters of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, whose aim is to promote democracy, political education, and promote students of outstanding intellectual abilities and personality [10][11]

Annen returned to the Bundestag at the 2013 election, regaining the Hamburg Eimsbüttel district from the CDU. He soon re-entered the leadership of the Parliamentary Left in 2014.[12] He also serves as chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the States of South Asia, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.[13] Between 2014 and 2015, he represented his parliamentary group in a crossparty committee headed by former defense minister Volker Rühe to review the country's parliamentary rules on military deployments.[14]

Within the SPD, Annen serves as chairman of the SPD's Commission for International Politics, alongside Martin Schulz.[15] In the negotiations to form a coalition government under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, he was part of the working group on foreign policy, led by Ursula von der Leyen, Gerd Müller and Sigmar Gabriel.

In March 2018, Annen was appointed Minister of State at the German Federal Foreign Office in the fourth Merkel Cabinet, alongside Michael Roth and Michelle Müntefering.[16]

Annen is an advocate of continued German commitment in Afghanistan and has visited the country on multiple occasions during both of his terms in the Bundestag.[4] Amid discussions in the Social Democratic Party on whether to terminate Germany's mandate for German elite commando troops within the US-run Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) against Taliban fighters, Annen in 2007 said many SPD members were questioning Germany's continued role in the anti-terror battle in Afghanistan. He stated that "[m]any say [the SPD] is losing its way as a party oriented to finding peaceful solutions to international problems".[7] Along with Green MP Jürgen Trittin, Annen claimed that the American counterinsurgency mission was hindering civilian reconstruction under the umbrella of the second mission, the International Security Assistance Force, because of what they called a heavy-handed approach by the U.S. military on the ground that was alienating the local population.[17] In 2014, he voted in favor of continuing German participation in ISAF.

In April 2014, Annen accompanied Norbert Lammert as well as fellow members of the German Parliament Marieluise Beck and Hans-Peter Uhl on a visit to Pakistan, where they met with President Mamnoon Hussain, Chairman of the Senate Nayyar Hussain Bukhari and Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan.[18]

In April 2015, Annen went on another trip to the region with the German-South-Asian Parliamentary Group.[19] In Afghanistan, the group met with delegates of both the upper and lower houses of parliament[19] and it met with President Mamnoon Hussain during its trip to Pakistan.[20] A central point of discussion in both countries was the security in the region.[19] In a speech on 23 April 2015, after his return from the visit, Annen stated that, amidst some negative developments, there were clear positive trends visible in Afghanistan especially regarding rising rates of school enrolment and the state of democratic elections.[21]

Annen has frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the information provided by NATO headquarters. Following statements by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Philip M. Breedlove, on troop advances on the border between Russia and Ukraine in early 2015, Annen publicly complained that "NATO in the past has always announced a new Russian offensive just as, from our point of view, the time had come for cautious optimism." He added that "we parliamentarians were often confused by information regarding alleged troop movements that were inconsistent with the information we had."[22]

In 2008, Annen called on the United States to remove all nuclear weapons stored in military bases in Germany after a U.S. Air Force report found that safety standards at most sites for nuclear weapons in Europe fall well short of Pentagon requirements.[23]

In July 2015, Annen joined Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on a trip to Cuba; it was the first time a German foreign minister had visited the country since German reunification in 1990.[24][25]

Annen has in the past voted in favor of German participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions as well as in United Nations-mandated European Union peacekeeping missions on the African continent, such as in Somalia – Operation Atalanta (2014) and EUTM Somalia (2015 and 2016) –, Darfur/Sudan (2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018), South Sudan (2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018), the Central African Republic (2014) and Mali – both MINUSMA (2014, 2017 and 2018) and EUTM Mali (2015 and 2018).

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine Annen has advocated for continued dialogue with the Russian Federation in order to facilitate "good neighbourly relations."[26] However, he supported economic sanctions against Russia as well as its exclusion from the G7 saying that "Russia un-invited itself" with the internationally wrongful annexation of Crimea.[27] Moreover, he supported the absence of Chancellor Angela Merkel from the festivities for the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Russia on the 9th of May 2015 stating that "the political conditions for a German participation in the festivities are currently not fulfilled."[28]

Annen also responded angrily to statements by U.S. Senator John McCain who alleged that Germany was pursuing appeasement policies akin to those of the 1930s.[29] Furthermore, he stated that "nobody in Europe did as much to support peace in Europe as Steinmeier and Merkel" (the German Foreign Minister and Chancellor) and demanded a public apology from the Senator.[29] Annen rejected American plans to supply arms to Ukrainian forces stating that it "would be a dangerous step towards the escalation of the Ukraine conflict."[30]

Annen has made public statements about the transnational conflict against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. In an interview with Das Parlament on 15 September 2014, he underlined the relevance of the conflict for Germany, stating that the risk of terrorist attacks had risen as the result of German IS-fighters returning from the battlefield.[31] Moreover, he supported the supply of German arms to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces claiming that he was well aware of the danger of future misuse of the weapons but saw no other way to help defend the city of Erbil from IS forces.[31] Annen also made the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad partially responsible for the formation and strength of Islamic State and warned of legitimizing Assad as the lesser evil in the conflict.[32]

In April 2014, Annen visited the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan to learn more about the plight of Syrians fleeing the violence in the ongoing Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011.[33]